Jasper Visser: "To address the most important issue first: there is no such thing as digital storytelling. There’s only storytelling in the digital age, and frankly speaking this isn’t much different from storytelling in the age of hunters, gatherers, dinosaurs and ICQ" ...

Often when you have a small class other teachers tell you how lucky you are and look enviously in your direction. It's not always that easy though, getting dialogue can be very difficult. There are some tips here to get your small class talking.

Through alternative formative assessment, teachers can check for student understanding without falling back on the tedious or intimidating pop quiz.

Louise Robinson-Lay's insight:

Formative assessment strategies allow you to gauge student understanding in a constructive way that then allows you to further build on understanding and address any misconceptions along the way. This ensures more effective learning and less disappointment for students in summative tasks. Edutopia's post here has a handy downloadable PDFs with 53 strategies that you can try in your classroom.

Data: I lurve it. While some folks around here track their reading with giant, single-spaced, hundreds-of-pages-long Word docs, and others use good old-fashioned book journals, I’m Team Ultimate Reading Spreadsheet (With A Sprinkle of Goodreads). I started tracking my reading on … Continued

Louise Robinson-Lay's insight:

What a great way to look over what you have read throughout the year. I love that you can turn it into pie charts and bar graphs too.

A good public speaker takes their audience on a journey, leaving them feeling inspired and motivated. But structuring your speech to get your ideas across and keep your audience engaged all the way through is tricky. Try these eight storytelling techniques for a presentation that wows.

Computers may dominate our lives, but mastery of penmanship brings us important cognitive benefits, research suggests Continue reading...

Louise Robinson-Lay's insight:

Writing still dominates in schools. Our exams are handwritten and many students are still encouraged to handwrite notes. There are some benefits to handwriting. It allows for thinking time which can assist in clearer writing and it gives students the space to be more creative as it slows down the process. While it is crucial to be computer literate a blended approach to writing must be adopted by schools in order to allow students the benefits of both approaches.

A tablet computer, where students can handwrite, are a good option for note taking too, but less useful for writing essays and longer texts.

Add Your Insight...a diary is a wonderful way of recording, observing and sifting. It is also a road to better writing through observation. Many great writers have kept diaries. Some of them have been saved for us.

The essay, as the primary form of assessment, should be dead. This is the kind of comment that terrifies academics everywhere – but it is an idea that I think we all need to consider. The “news” that there…

Louise Robinson-Lay's insight:

Authentic assessment. Common sense. That doesn't mean schools and universities will use it!

Students engage more passionately when trying to answer a question that interests them. Here are ten opening questions that have inspired this kind of learning.

Louise Robinson-Lay's insight:

Questions drive good learning. It stNds to reason that if we have a need to know something then we are more interested in the outcome and will ask questions designed to getting at answers. This article describes some of the ways in which teachers can use this to spark curiosity and get to better learning through engagement.

“ Questioning is the key to critical thinking and through questions students get to explore the deep layers of meanings that would otherwise go unnoticed. Of course not all questions have this analytical ability. For instance, closed questions tend to limit the thinking choices available for students. The same with questions that promote factual recalling. Questions that emphasize the mechanical on the analytical are out of the list. In today's post, I am sharing with you this mini guide created by Foundation of Critical Thinking which you can use with your students to help them better comprehend and apply critical thinking in their learning. This could also be a very good resource teachers can draw on to enhance their questioning strategies.”
Via John Evans

Louise Robinson-Lay's insight:

Frameworks for thinking allow us to design more meaningful curriculum that links to students knowledge and encourages greater engagement. These ones are handy to use when planning.

“Gifted students do not need scaffolding is just one of the misconceptions that doesn't help teachers or schools reach gifted kids efficiently.”

Louise Robinson-Lay's insight:

There is still much hype around the contested idea of 'giftedness' the editorial article here attempts to bring some clarity to the issue. Regardless of our beliefs about the idea of giftedness, students who are talented and need to be extended have the right to an individualised approach.

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